Where were we if not at the beginning?The wind ambled off the salt water,the distance fractured our gaze without a blink,and the moon rushedinto the dark rouge of the hills.Imagine, I said, if those hillswere still ours. But you had already counted the bone bites of a lost country,opened each page of those wounds to full glow.

The calm was too far off to be remembered---All around us: leftoverstones, look-alikeorchards full of lemonsand guavas,white bolts of bandaged children---morning still trembling on their lips, their grassy lashes glaringacross makeshift coffins:why do we carry those children in the blur

of the moon's afterglow?But at least they livedand fought on their land, I saidrecalling our last return---was it the last? when my mother soured the soldier's eyeswith her talk of blood and the laws of its searing.Then she loosenedher forehead and said:“Look closely and you will stillsee the etch of sweet sapthat comes from loving your land.”

But you crimped your breathand held it in your mouth,your eyes embering darkly.Listen, I told you, this affection is not a failure,while the lights across the Dead Seaunsheathedbut betrayed nothing.